A Love That Rings True
by Sinnamon Spider
Summary: Like every good pirate, Jack wore a sizable collection of rings on his filthy fingers. And like only the best pirates, each ring told a tale of a woman scorned and a prize gained. Save for one. One-shot, J/E.


Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to Disney.

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A/N: Like every good pirate, Jack wore a sizable collection of rings on his filthy fingers. And like only the best pirates, each ring told a tale of a woman scorned and a prize gained. Save for one. One-shot, J/E.

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**A Love That Rings True  
**By: Sinnamon Spider

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Like every good pirate, Jack wore a sizable collection of rings on his filthy fingers.

Like every great pirate, each ring had a swashbuckling tale attached to it.

And like only the best pirates, each ring told a tale of a woman scorned and a prize gained.

Save for one.

But Jack was certain that one couldn't be held against him. After all, it did concern a prize gained. And besides, the stories that went along with the others were often enough to persuade a non-believer.

The silver ring with the green stone had belonged to a sea nymph he had encountered in the Mediterranean. She had caught him in her silvery net when the ship he had been on had been sunk, and taken him to a pretty cove where she'd made very admirable attempts to seduce him. But she was not the first divinity he had duped, and she wouldn't be the last. She had nearly reclaimed the ring when she put aside seduction in favour of killing him, but he had endured, and it made for a wonderful story.

The gold ring he had appropriated from a very high-ranking Incan priestess. She had been in charge of preparing him to be sacrificed, but as they always did, she had fallen under his spell and been coerced into letting him go. When she realized the ring, which was vital in the sacrificial rights, had disappeared along with him, she had sent scouts out to retrieve both of them, but naturally, Jack was already in hiding. He had been sorry to watch as she was sacrificed in his place.

The black and gold ring was among his favourite stories involving a haughty Spanish widow. She had made him a bet: that he couldn't seduce her without touching her, simply using his voice and his words. If she won, he would remain with her for five years, at her beck and call. If he won, she would let him escape without calling the authorities. Jack Sparrow, of course, not being one to lose a bet, succeeded in his endeavour. He imagined it had added insult to injury when he took her wedding ring with him as a token of the encounter.

The green dragon ring was responsible for both one of his favourite scars and his feud with Sao Feng. He had been simply lounging in Singapore when word of a priceless treasure guarded by sumptuous female twins reached his ear. He had already pocketed the ring and was in the process of doing the same with the luscious Park and Lian when Sao Feng arrived and, Jack privately maintained, blew the entire situation completely out of proportion. It had taken everything he had up his sleeve to get out of that one, and the saber slash to his left bicep remained as a reminder that he had nearly had both of Sao Feng's handmaidens in his thrall.

There were other rings, with less interesting stories, but all of a similar vein. But the one that stood apart from the others was a fairly simple gold ring with a swan crest and coat of arms; the emblem of the Swann family.

Elizabeth Swann's signet ring had not come to him with the owner scorned. Rather, she had been quite pleased to bestow it upon him, along with a promise that she would return to retrieve it one day. She had given it to him on the day of the battle with Beckett's armada, in the early blush of dawn when she slipped from the bed they had finally fallen into as fear and anticipation and the ever-present lust had at last claimed them.

She had yielded her virginity to him, as countless other girls had before her, but this was not the prize gained.

She had also yielded her heart, the treasure he had coveted since the day he met her, and it was this prize he would guard with his life.

He didn't know where she was, or when she would return. But the weight of her family ring, quite alone on the fourth finger of his left hand, would tide him over until he saw her again.

And in the meantime, he would occupy his time with inventing a suitably scandalous story, in case someone should ask how he attained that particular ring.

"Well, I was in the process of obtaining a new ship when a buxom young lass, quite distressed by an unwanted proposal of marriage, fled her would-be suitor and took a bit of a wrong turn, plummeting over a very high cliff-side wall. I, of course, dove to her rescue and she, being of an appropriately grateful feeling, saw fit to reward me with the spoils of her untainted body…"

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End file.
